My Garden

Seeds vs Starts & Perennials vs Annuals

I really want to have a beautiful productive garden. There are so many wonderful things about having a garden that are amazing. To begin with you can grow the food you eat instead of relying money to purchase your food. In my efforts to become ever more self-reliant I am trying to make my homestead as productive as possible. However I have to admit I do not have a very green thumb, in fact I rather think that my thumb tends towards black far too often. For this reason, I like to use starts instead of seeds. Last year we grew a whole tray of seeds and when we moved, in one night, they were all dead from extreme weather. I really should try again, but it is so nice to walk down to the store and purchase a handful of plants that are already months into their growth. However for a self-reliant approach I need to learn to not only successfully grow from seeds, but I need to learn to harvest my own seeds for the next season.

Second, I want to grow as many things in my garden as I can that are Perennials so that I don't have to repurchase plants and every year they can continue to contribute to our food supply. For this reason I want to plant things like rhubarb, berries (in all their varieties), trees that produce food (fruits and nuts), and edible flowers and plants that are perennials.
I have always thought of dandelions as weeds, but here where I don't have any grass, I would like to see dandelions growing so that I can harvest their leaves for salads and use the for medicinal uses. I have so much that I would like to do and I have a very limited budget so for this reason also I need to carefully purchase plants that will be the best use for our property.

 So far the only perennial that I have in my garden is cumfrey. I hope that by the end of this season I will have my rhubarb planted along with some bushes (perhaps currants and gooseberries).

Also we will be getting goats soon and I need to make sure that I don't plant my garden in such a way that one day of the goats out and all of my hard work is eaten away.